v3.6.21.1 Beta Update (2004.09.23)

Contents

Fixes

One of the ways in which W:A didn't work under Windows 2000/XP before v3.5 Beta 1, was that it would hang when switching from the front end to gameplay mode, right before the piechart would have been shown. It was possible to fool it into starting anyway (by Alt-Tabbing to one of the W:A processes, or in some cases something more complex), but the palette would be wrong and the update rate would be slow. As it turns out, the fix was not complete, because this bug would sometimes still happen. Now there is a more correct fix that goes closer to the root of this problem, and it may solve problems some people have been having trying to start a game.

Even when instant replays were disabled in the scheme, one would still be shown after a Worm had skimmed water or used a Kamikaze, despite the v3.6.19.17 fix.

When using the mouse to point a Strike weapon, the cursor was initially pointed 45° left/right from down. If the angle was adjusted with the Left/Right arrows, it would still point 45° right but would point 34° left. This is now fixed. On the other hand, the cursor for Teleport and other targeted weapons was originally intended to point 45° up-left, but everybody is used to that fact that it points 34° left from up. This is caused by a glitch, but a change would be disorienting, so the 34° angle has been preserved.

Ran Profiling on W:A to find where the CPU spends most of its time in-game, with some interesting and helpful results.

The function to render flaming health bars was always being executed, whether or not any flaming bars were actually being displayed. This routine was unoptimised and very processor intensive. It is now much more efficient, and furthermore will not run unless needed.

Fixed-point multiplication has now been inlined, creating a global speed-up. (Sea bubbles were a heavy user of multiplication, so there's a speed-up even in idle conditions.)

These changes allow for better performance when fast-forwarding replays, and should also help to keep the frame rate steady during normal play.

In games recorded with v3.6.19.15 or later, chat messages that were made after a pending game-over were not being shown during playback.

Fixes affecting game logic

The Girder Radius (maximum ortho-distance between your worm and any possible place you can place a girder) is now calculated from the centre of the girder. Previously, it was calculated from the upper-left corner of an orthogonal rectangle encompassing the girder, which was asymmetric and non-intuitive. Note that the radius actually defines a diamond rather than a circle, as with many things in W:A; ortho-distance is the sum of horizontal and vertical distance, as opposed to distance which is the square root of the sum of the squares of horizontal and vertical distances.

If an animal (such as a sheep) was sent out to collect a health crate, and the Worm sending it died before collection, the health would still be added to its team total. This could cause the game to see that team as "alive" even after all its worms died out; but when the turn passed to that team, the game would crash. Now, health crates will not be collected by an animal sent by a now-dead Worm. (See Footnote 2.

After using Rope, Bungee or Parachute, a player would always get Air retreat time on that turn, even if using a weapon from the ground.

It was possible to fire a ground-only weapon in the single frame (1/50 second) step between walking off a ledge and falling. The weapon would not fire, but would incur retreat time. Now, such an attempt will result in a warning beep.

Under certain very rare circumstances, a roping Worm could become stuck against a wall at the same moment the rope unsnagged, causing it to be trapped in that spot until dismounting from the rope. This also caused the game's CPU usage to soar until the rope was dismounted.

The parachute/fall damage speed threshold mismatch was indeed fixed once and for all in v3.6.20.1. However, there was again a small area between vertical speed thresholds where a Worm that fell out of a roll or slide would twang without accruing fall damage, as there was in v3.6.19.7. [This was finally a complete fix.]

Normal mines were not triggered by a Frozen Worm, but mines from a Mine Strike were.

Under certain rare circumstances, a dud mine could explode. The condition for this made no sense; it didn't have anything to do with blasting or knocking the mine, but rather happened when the centre of the mine was within 1 pixel of the centre of a worm at the right moment. This is now disabled and may in a future version be replaced with something more sensible.

Changes

Some people experience a palette bug in which background apps can steal the palette from W:A, corrupting some or all of its colours. W:A will now log these to "palette.log" located in your main Worms Armageddon folder. Note that the problem can still happen; the only change is that it is logged. This information gleaned from this may lead to finding a fix.

Features

It is now possible to play replays as fast as your machine is likely to handle, and at 1.5× as well. The [1]-[9] keys now correspond to 1×,1.5×,2×,3×,4×,6×,8×,12×,16×. Hold [0] while pressing [1]-[9] and you will get 24×,32×,48×,64×,96×,128×,192×,256×,384×. (As before, holding Shift while pressing [1]-[9] will set slow-motion; the multiplier chart becomes a divider chart.)

The frame rate will not be allowed to drop significantly below 10 fps. Thus the keyboard will no longer become very unresponsive during a fast-forward which taxes the CPU.

As before, holding the left mouse button during a replay will override automatic camera motion. This now works in an online game during other players' turns. In addition, turning on CAPS LOCK will override the camera during a replay. [Caps Lock no longer has this function. See the entry for v3.6.26.4.]

There is now a Log Extraction feature which can be applied on game recordings. Right-click on a .WAgame file and choose "Extract Log", and the game information, chat and major game events (with timestamps in game time) and end-game stats will be logged to a file in the same folder with the same base filename.

Features affecting game logic

In Cavern levels, the Teleport and homing/strike weapons can now be pointed within a slightly larger range, encompassing the leftmost and rightmost positions where a Worm may stand on the edges of the landscape. While pointing near the rightmost edge, the cursor is now horizontally flipped for visibility.

The cursor for Teleport, Girder, and homing/strike weapons can now be moved all the way down to water level. [Unintentionally, this allowed horizontal girders to be placed partially underwater if the water level was higher than the bottom of the map. See v3.7.2.0 for the fix.]